Recently, Pat Condell’s videos have sometimes come close to out-of-control rants, but you have to judge the content of each video on its own. And this one, about free speech and its erosion in America, seems right on the money:
Pat Condell on free speech
June 6, 2015 • 1:00 pm
Alas, he does seem pretty much right on target.
Once upon a time, progressivism and liberalism held sacred civil liberties, especially the right to free speech. Or, at least, progressivism and liberalism as I thought I understood it.
So…where does that leave those of us who still think the First Amendment is a good idea?
I’ll have nothing to do with the politically-correct anti-hate-speech pro-Islam Left of today. But the Right is every bit as odious, just on different matters.
Who is with me any more these days?
b&
I’m confused. Back in the 60s, I thought of myself as being “liberal”, which meant, as I understood it, open to new ideas. Then liberalism fell into disrepute, referring strictly to liberal economic policy. Later, I thought I was socialist, meaning social-democratic, as in my Swedish wife’s country. Then that fell into disrepute. Since then, I’ve called myself a progressive. But now that too is catching flack. So who are these liberals and socialists and progressives who are so awful? As I said, I’m confused.
At least in the States, the “social justice warrior” and the authoritarians in the Democratic party (by now most of the elected officials) team up to force everybody into protective bubble wrap and strip away all sharp implements, especially round-nose scissors with plastic guards on the blades. Possession of a carving knife makes one a terrorist suspect, and actually using it to carve anything not in accord with the politically-correct party line is offensive hate speech.
No, I haven’t a clue why these impulses should be so dominating amongst the inheritors of the Civil Rights and Suffrage and Labor movements. Makes no sense!
b&
Except when “liberal” economic policy is really conservative.
I am with you and will not be swayed by some ‘possible’ minor criticism of Condell either.
The whole thing is going to hell in a hand basket.
Even Jerry Seinfeld (who is no George Carlin) knows now to not perform at American colleges: http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/05/jerry-seinfeld-dont-go-near-colleges-pol
I just had a somewhat disturbing revelation.
We mouth platitudes in favor of freedom of speech, and about how we may disagree with somebody but defend to the death their right to say what they will…but what do we actually do in schools? Why, everything possible to “protect” students from offensive and disturbing speech!
Where the fuck are the classes on how to properly react to offensive and disturbing speech? In what class do students take an Hitler speech, deconstruct it, and discuss the most effective way to counter his rhetoric? Which teachers are responsible for instructing students in coping techniques for managing the discomfort from insults or other offenses hurled at them? And, perhaps most importantly, where are you supposed to learn how to yourself wield language as an offensive weapon, to rally supporters to your cause or to instill despair in your opponents?
I’d be curious to know from any Millennials: have you read Aristotle’s Rhetoric or Machiavelli’s The Prince? Or is Strunk and White the farthest students are ever led down that path these days?
b&
Good questions. If college isn’t the place to receive such instructions, then I don’t know what is.
College is much too late for those skills. They need to be taught from the very beginning. If a kindergardener is old enough to be involved in an exchange with another kindergardener that includes words such as, “poopyhead,” then that same kindergardener is old enough to learn the significance and consequences of hateful and disturbing speech and how to best survive such encounters. And a college student who’s lived in a padded cell for the past couple decades or so is going to violently react to any attempts to break the shell.
b&
Good observation! Great, actually.
I agree completely. I’ve said a couple of times before here that I think the current environment is an unfortunate consequence of the (good) crackdown on bullying. Students can’t tell the difference between disagreement and bullying, and expect to be coddled at all times. When kids are bullied, the only response they know is to run to a “teacher or other adult they trust”. Too many as a result expect never have to face the slightest disagreement, and consider it abuse.
There likely is a great deal to that. Of course, much of what gets labeled with the “bullying” euphemism would be considered assault and battery if one adult did it to another…but I don’t think we’re doing children any favors with the current approaches to bullying, either.
b&
A major problem with the current approaches to bullying, in my opinion, is that it is impractical to expect children to be able to determine what is and isn’t bullying. Actually, I’ll go further and say that it is unethical to leave the decision up to children.
Another major problem, and this comes from years of direct experience raising kids and interacting with the school environment, is that despite all of the messaging they are inundated with the adults they are supposed to rely on typically don’t do their jobs. The kids can’t rely on the adults, teacher’s and other school staff, for help when they need it. What kind of message, or conditioning are they getting when they are told that if they are bullied they should immediately tell an adult and they will be protected, and then when they actually are and they go to an adult they are ignored, told to suck it up, told they are a trouble maker, or worse, and I have seen this happen first hand, ridiculed by those same adults in front of their peers.
And as a little cherry on top, school rules strictly forbid, and it is enforced, hugging and holding hands. We are talking kindergarten through elementary school so keeping hormone driven teens from doing the nasty on school grounds is not a valid concern. We are so screwed up.
Even more so when you realize that these kids will someday have kids of their own….
b&
College is too late.
The rot has started much earlier.
There was an account of an absurdity at an English primary school, St George’s was its name. A student was play fighting a dragon with his ruler, long story short police called, student ‘spoken’ to.
Parents pissed.
Now *that’s* ironic, given that name of the school. (It almost sounds too good to be true.)
At San Francisco State’s (required) critical thinking class, we did read a chapter from Mein Kamf and deconstructed it.
That’s good…but several years later than it should have been. I know my own first exposure to Mein Kampf was in high school, and I really see no reason it shouldn’t have been in junior high. I definitely remember learning about wagon train migrations in junior high school…but, somehow, that was devoid of pretty much all mention of what happened to the natives whose land the Europeans were migrating to and through. And, at the same time, in the same history class, I remember writing a paper that rationalized the use of atomic weapons on the Japanese civilian population.
We’ve really got quite the fucked-up educational system.
b&
Right. We need omniscient Romneyesque corporate tyrant types, politicos, economists, and newspaper editorial boards to go into teaching and show us how it’s done.
I was pleased to hear that one of my old professors at McGill has started showing Triumph of the Will when teaching about Heidegger …
People sometimes claim that some philosophers are “ahistorical” – and the “continental” ones were better at historical sensitivity and that, so this is actually doing that …
I must say that it has been educational for me to hear many of you talk about this issue and how it has evolved in the schools these days. Not being around any of this and far removed from the schools, I had no idea the protectionist attitude and anti-free speech program was so big.
Maybe the lack of interest in U.S. History is part of the problem? Possibly a reaction to the heavy handed far right and their twisted interpretation of history and the Constitution? I’m not sure of all the causes but should throw in that “herd mentality” which has always been popular as well.
Is being offended something that we just want to avoid these days? Maybe if you are offended more often you will get use to it and even like it.
At the other end we have the conservatives who are absolutely sure they know what free speech is all about. The guy who drafted the 1st Amendment had lots of slaves and I’ll be guessing, did not ask their opinion too often or that of a poor white laborers or females. He and many of his fellow founders would be extremely surprise if they were here today, but not necessarily in the way you might think.
On a positive note: Novelist says she was ‘Misinformed and (quite frankly) wrong’ to oppose Charlie Hebdo PEN award
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/01/charlie-hebdo-novelist-wrong-to-oppose-pen-award-jennifer-cody-epstein
The direct link to a full copy of her letter:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/butterfliesandwheels/2015/05/jennifer-cody-epsteins-letter-to-the-anti-charlie-hebdo-faction/#ixzz3boBtDblr
I like it. It’s good to see.
It comes perilously close to being a notpology, with the crux of it coming down to this snippet:
While the second half of that is admirable, the first half more than strongly suggests that, had the Hebdo cartoonists really been publishing what she originally thought they had been publishing, all the scorn heaped upon them would be justified.
At least she had the good decency to get the ordering of the arguments correct, with the important bits coming at the end. This is one case where a well-placed “but” would have been an huge improvement: “The controversial images were tasteless. But, even if they had been hateful, if one is to argue for freedom of speech there can be no caveats….”
So kudos to her for writing the second half of that snippet, but it would have been much better had she left out the first half altogether.
b&
I think you’re misconstruing this, Ben. As I interpret the passage you quote, JCE is implying at most that, had Charlie Hebdo been as hate-driven as she originally thought, it wouldn’t have merited the Freedom of Expression Courage award — not that it wouldn’t have then been entitled to free speech protection, much less deserved its murderous attack.
I agree with her. If Charlie Hebdo had not been satire, but had instead been an straight=ahead, hate-filled, anti-immigrant Penist screed, it would still be entitled to be published, but not deserve this award from PEN.
I think Jennifer Cody Epstein’s apology letter serves as a model for the genre, especially this passage:
Would that the other PEN dissenters do the same research and same soul-searching, come to the same conclusion, and make a similarly sincere mea culpa.
Hmmm…you could be right in that. If so, a bit more clarity from her to avoid ambiguity in interpretation would be called for — and, to be fair, a PEN writer addressing this very topic should have such concerns at the forefront….
b&
Of course, the most awful SJW’s, like Trudeau, argued that satire = hate if the people pictured are at all oppressed.
So, no satire, at all, if if involves an oppressed group. Period.
…and, how do you know that a group is oppressed? They’re subjected to satire….
b&
Superbly circular. QED and well done.
That she cares to comment on hijabs in schools,
…”Islamophobia (in a nation that has already banned the hajib from its schools, no less)”
reduces her apology and confirms some type of fixed thinking and opinion that gave rise to the initial kneejerk mistaken position in the first place..
Better than nothing though.
He may be right on free speech, but he’s wrong when he talks about progressives. I’m a progressive, I’m for free speech. I live in Canada, we have hate speech laws, and I don’t like them.
So Mr. Condell is wrong, progressive does not equal anti free speech.
On the other hand, I keep hearing from some on the right how their free speech rights are being denied, because when they say something, they have to accept he consequences from their employer, the private sector, or from consumers.
They have the right to say whatever they want. I have the right to not purchase things from companies that advertize on Fox News, or any show that has that lunatic Glenn Beck, or the odious Rush Limbaugh. Employers have the right to fire them if employees say things that reflect badly on the employer. Especially those in the public eye with specific riders in their contract covering such.
In fact, besides voting for a change in government, who I purchase goods from is one of the few ways of expressing my opinion that I have, that has an actual effect.
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences of that speech. It only means the government may not punish people for speech.
I may choose to ostracize certain people from my life who express certain opinions and that too is well within my rights. They may do the same to me. For instance, I don’t hang out with people who express their desire to have sexual relations with children. Even if they never actually do it.
BTW, he said (paraphrasing) “The values established in the constitution made the US a superpower”
I disagree. What made the US a superpower was a number of geographical and historical accidents, a number of atrocities, a good deal of imperialism, a few inventions, and a willingness to sell armaments to various countries while they were fighting the first world war and the second world war, and not having America bombed into rubble like all the other super powers, leaving the USA with one of the few populous countries with an intact economy and infrastructure.
That is what made the USA a superpower.
I suppose adding the deaths of tens of millions of native Americans might have played some small part. The refusal of the states to abide by treaties with the remaining native Americans also allowed the theft of some extremely productive land and mines.
But I suppose that’s just me being a progressive.
“So Mr. Condell is wrong, progressive does not equal anti free speech.” Bravo! Keep up the good work, fellow progressive.
+1. It was the things you mention that made the US a superpower, not freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is what makes and maintains a democracy.
In the US, money interferes in the democratic process though. Many of us live in countries with strict electoral finance rules that help make us arguably more democratic than the US, even though they got there first.
And progressive doesn’t equal anti-free speech either, as you say. There is much that it good about liberal European (and ANZAC) values, and they have influenced the US positively. Remember anti-slavery for example?
I’m not a fan of Pat Condell.
I believe some of this discussion is having a tendency to leave the tracks. I’m not particularly keen on the superpower and free speech connection but some of the things registered as related to superpower are a little strange.
The superpower language would relate to economic condition as much as anything. America has this thing called free market capitalism and not too much regulation and that has a great deal to do with the condition. Also, this industrial power had as much to do with the outcome of WWII as anything else. Same way the north beat the south in the Civil War. They out-produced them.
You could say we built the stuff so the Russians could kill Germans. Sorry but that’s the way it was.
For those who do not get too much into U.S. History or History in general — it is a good idea to get your mind into the period you are talking about before doing a lot of criticizing. Otherwise, looking at it from your backyard today will do nothing for you or your view of the world.
I’m not criticizing the US, I’m criticizing Condell’s view of it, and his analysis of what makes the US great.
I’m not sure if you’re saying free market capitalism is exclusive to the US? It’s almost about everywhere.
To congenially inquire, if “progressive” is an incorrect/erroneous noun name for Mr. Condell to have used, what noun name should he have correctly used?
The most depressing part (which Condell mentions) is that these are the people who will be running things in a few years. That’s one good reason NOT to wish for immortality.
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(Trigger warning: contains the word poop.)
Why wasn’t there a trigger warning before that? Now my feelings are hurt and I have PTSD from all the other times my feelings were hurt.
It’s my birthday today and now Pat has pooped on it.
Couldn’t finish it. Got tired of the “Progressive” bashing.
No, this is yet another of his rants.He just happens to be expressing a legitimate concern about threats to free speech. But he goes way over the top in characterizing the nature of that threat. I seldom find cause for disagreement with you Jerry, but I could not disagree more with your statement that this rant “seems right on the money.” His exaggeration of the problem is, I believe, more of a threat than the threat he describes.